You know what I love best about tonight’s poem? It reminds me of Emily Dickinson, someone whose work I admire not just because of its complexity, but also because the woman who wrote it led such an intellectually rich but societally challenged life.

What does this poem make you think of? For me, it calls to mind “A narrow fellow in the grass” and “Eden is that old-fashioned House.” It’s rhyming done well, modern and brief, serene yet slightly punchy. Does this sound like a contradiction? It does to me, but still, it’s how I feel about it. And in my head, in my gut, it makes sense.

 

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Quiet Things

Let the poem be a still thing. –W.S. Graham

Like the fall of one bright feather
from the eagle’s taloned clutch.
Down it drifts in pretty weather,
troubling no ear overmuch.

Or like the rushing stream gone dry.
Or like the netted butterfly.
Or like the slither of small snakes.
Or like a heart that slowly breaks.

 

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Janice D. Soderling has published poetry, fiction and translations at Mezzo Cammin, Rattle, The Rotary Dial, Light, Think, Alabama Literary Review, Hobart, Per Contra, Glimmer Train, Evansville Review and way over a hundred other print and online journals. She is assistant fiction editor at Able Muse. Janice hails from the United States but lives in Sweden.